President Clinton is tentatively scheduled to address a White House event on crime.

Jewish people observe the Fast of the 10th of Tevet, commemorating the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in the 6th century B.C.

On Wednesday, December 30, President and Mrs. Clinton are scheduled to leave for Hilton Head, South Carolina to participate in the annual Renaissance Weekend.

On Thursday, December 31, the ceremonial ball will drop at midnight in Times Square in New York. Sang Lan, the 17-year-old Chinese gymnast paralyzed at last summer's Goodwill Games, will help Mayor Rudolph Giuliani do the honors.

On Friday, January 1, the euro, a single European currency, is scheduled to be launched.

On Saturday, January 2, the NFL Wild Card playoffs begin.

On Sunday, January 3, Prince Charles and other members of British royal family scheduled to arrive in Switzerland for a week-long ski holiday.

In 1981, U.S. President Reagan announced a program of economic sanctions against the Soviet Union because of its alleged role in the imposition of martial law in Poland.

In 1983, the United States formally announced its intention to withdraw from UNESCO at the end of 1984.

In 1986, former British prime minister (1957-63) Harold Macmillan died.

In 1989, playwright Vaclav Havel, jailed for five years for his human rights activities and long denounced in the communist media as an enemy of the state, was sworn in as president of Czechoslovakia.

In 1992, President Daniel arap Moi won Kenya's first multiparty polls in 26 years. In 1993, after 2,000 years of often hostile Christian-Jewish relations, the Vatican and Israel approved a document in which the Holy See and the Jewish state recognized each other.

In 1994, 53 people were killed when a Turkish Airlines aircraft crashed in a snowstorm while trying to land in eastern Turkey.

In 1995, a French air force cargo plane landed at the Bosnian city of Mostar, becoming the first aircraft to do so since 1992.